


The Deft Ones

by Saucery



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Angst, Army, BAMF!Stiles, Bullying, Child Abuse, Child Soldiers, Courage, Dark, Disturbing Themes, Drama, Dubious Consent, Emotional Manipulation, Friendship, Genetic Engineering, Genetics, Geniuses, Good People in Bad Situations, Grief/Mourning, Hazing, Human Experimentation, Hurt/Comfort, Implied or Off-stage Rape/Non-con, Involuntary Medical Procedures, Killing, Loss, Love, Loyalty, M/M, Mad Scientists, Military, Military Ranks, Pack Dynamics, Pack Feels, Prodigies, Psychological Trauma, Psychological Warfare, Revolution, Science Fiction, Self-Sacrifice, Slow Build, Strategy, Triggers, Underage Sex, Violence, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-09-18
Updated: 2012-09-21
Packaged: 2017-11-14 13:14:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/515596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saucery/pseuds/Saucery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The deft ones are always the hunted; the predator is rarely nimbler than the prey.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a dystopian alternate universe in which genetic engineering has resulted in lupine super-soldiers and an overly militarized society.
> 
> Each chapter of this story is a fictional year of Stiles's life. This chapter documents Stiles's twelfth year; the next will chronicle his thirteenth, and the one after that, his fourteenth. Be warned that there _will_ eventually be sexual situations (if not outright sex) between a fourteen-year-old Stiles and a nineteen-year-old Derek, followed by sex between a twenty-year-old Derek and a fifteen-year-old Stiles. **You are advised to read no further if underage sex is a deal-breaker.**
> 
> Please note that this is a dark story in which moral questions are deliberately raised. Graphic violence, human experimentation and military hazing are also to be expected.

* * *

 

When Stiles and Scott are twelve years old, they're removed from their parents' homes for compulsory genetic screening. The testing center is a dull little square of a building in which they're herded in and out of a series of rooms, poked and prodded by increasingly dour doctors and nurses way too nice to be anything but creepy.

Blood samples and hair samples are independently extracted from the boys at every testing-station, to prevent genetic falsification or the successful planting of fake organic material by desperate parents. Some parents have been known to bribe officials or resort to illegally manufactured fingerprints and blood-altering drugs to get their children past the tests; such efforts are pointless, now that the random home-visits and stricter testing practices have been put in place.

It's all standard protocol. Stiles knows this, because he's studied it, because he's been waiting for it. One of the reasons is because his dad's a sheriff, and hasn't ever tried to hide the harsh facts of life from his son; he believes that truth is far more empowering than deceit, however well-meant it may be. The other reason is because Stiles is a lot cleverer than he pretends to be. That's another thing his dad taught him, for his own good; being deceived is unacceptable, but deceiving others is mandatory. You can't be too smart or too strong, these days, or the soldiers will take you away and make you one of 'em.

Scott's got asthma. That should get Scott outta here, right? As for Stiles, he'll just blabber and grin and play the attention-deficit spazz. He's great at that. Uh. Well, it's also half-true. But anyway.

There are other kids here, too, in nighties or pajamas or rumpled T-shirts, with sleep-tousled hair and wobbly mouths. The stupid ones are whining; the smarter ones are deathly quiet. The smartest, of course, is Stiles, but he just brazens it out, joking around, complaining about the lack of vending machines and audibly pining after candy-bars.

And Scott… well, Scott's _Scott_ , neither stupid nor smart but something else, entirely. Sometimes, Stiles fondly thinks of Scott as his very own friendly alien. Scott won't stop yawning; it had been after midnight when the agents had knocked. Stiles can't believe that they're in a goddamn testing center, with the entire rest of their lives hanging in the balance, and all Scott can do is… yawn.

Stiles is wide awake, though. Wide awake and nervous, his knee bouncing as he waits outside yet another door (labeled 'End-Station'), trying to make his bouncing look more excitable than anything else.

This is the last station. When they come out of there, they'll know who's going to the army, and who's not.

Mercy of mercies, Scott's last name is much further up the alphabetical list, and he gets called in, first.

That means he's out before Stiles is. He _knows_ before Stiles does. About his own fate, and Stiles needs to see that, needs to see that Scott is _safe_ -

But Scott isn't safe. It's written all over his face, pale-skinned and dark-eyed, ashen with shock.

Scott isn't yawning, anymore.

He's terrified.

 _Shit_ , thinks Stiles, distantly, disbelievingly, as Scott emerges from the room and is led past Stiles, as he gives Stiles this _look_ , like -

Like they'll never see each other again, like -

How is this possible? Scott's not - Scott isn't -

Scott isn't especially strong _or_ especially smart, not in testable ways -

Unless.

Unless Scott tested positive for that rarest of genes, the one that started this whole testing business, in the first place.

The chances are… ridiculously small. Infinitesimal. Stiles does calculation after calculation in his brain, fists clenching on his knees as Scott is led away. Where are they taking him? Is there a van, out back, where kids that pass any one of the tests - for genetics or ability - are being piled in, only to be driven away to the nearest military base before dawn? Vanished forever, like ghosts?

What - 

"Stilinski," calls a nurse, and Stiles snaps out of it.

"Yup, that's me!" Stiles bounces by her, like Tigger personified, and is gratified when her stern lips quirk upward.

The doctor waiting for him has a series of multiple-choice questions for him to answer. There's a pencil and an eraser, and everything. Which is weird, because there's a whole lot of other equipment in the room, including but not limited to a dentist's chair and a freakin' brain-scanner the size of a pterodactyl, but all Stiles is getting is this lousy sheet of paper.

"Yo, doc, I thought I did my IQ test! What, did I get too many answers right? You think I'm cheatin'? 'Cause I gotta say, that breaks my heart."

"Sit," says the doctor, calmly.

Stiles sits. And swivels his chair around a couple times, just to irritate the doctor a bit.

"We noticed that you're close friends with Mr. McCall," the doctor drawls, and Stiles's chair _screeches_ to a halt. "A certain Scott McCall, who has just proved to be lupine-compatible."

Stiles's heart thuds.

"I'm sure you know what that means."

Stiles… doesn't say anything.

"What does it mean, Mr. Stilinski?"

"It means," Stiles grits out, "that you sons of bitches are gonna take him away from everyone and everything he knows, and turn him into a killing machine."

"My, my. Those are very liberal ideas. And yet, your father is," the doctor flips through a notepad in his hand, "a sheriff, is he not? I hope he doesn't foment rebellion in his own home. That would be bad. Very, very bad."

"Man, it ain't my dad, it's all those computer games I play. You know what they say. Bad influence. All that pointless non-violence. It damages young minds."

"Indeed." The doctor smiles a thin, chilling smile. "My name," he says, "is Adrian Harris."

"Hi, Dr. Harris. Jerk," Stiles mutters.

"I heard that." Harris's smile doesn't falter. "I'm the leading authority on the L23 gene, you see, and I've been waiting a _long_ time for this. McCall's been flagged as lupine-compatible, an event that is extremely rare, as the last case to appear in the entire child population of the United States was two years ago. A crop of less than six children in an entire decade."

"Boo-hoo for you," says Stiles. "I'm _so_ _sorry_ that your _crop_ _yield_ was lower than average. Psycho."

Harris continues as if he wasn't interrupted. "As he is very precious, Mr. McCall will be slated for a top position in the werecorps once his military training is complete. Until his graduation at the age of fifteen, he will be continuously given gene-conversion therapy as per the rules, and will, of course, be cured of his asthma and of any other… imperfections."

"Imperfections," Stiles echoes. He tilts his head. "That include his uneven jawline?"

Harris smirks. "No cosmetic changes, I'm afraid, other than a build-up of muscle and… you know the rest. You're very intelligent, aren't you?"

"Jeez, doc, are _you_ intelligent? 'Cause you couldn't have missed my score on the IQ test I did a couple rooms back. Closer to zero than the temperature of the arctic on a snowy day."

"Ah," says Harris. "You're quite right. Let's just say I leave the choice in your hands, hm? You can walk out of here, no harm done, to go back and tell Mrs. McCall that her son will never be coming home, and that he's gone to face hell, all alone. Or," and here, Harris pushes the sheet of multiple-choice questions across the desk, "you can retake the test, and ensure that whatever Mr. McCall faces, it will, at least, be in the company of his dearest friend."

"Bastard," Stiles says, and his voice isn't even trembling. He'd have retaken the test even if Harris hadn't said anything. " _Bastard_."

Harris hands him the pencil. "So I've been told." 

Stiles will pretend, years later, that he hesitated. That he didn't just jump feet-first into Harris's trap. That he didn't sign up to a lifetime of agony for Scott, because he won't want to hate Scott for getting him into this, for all the things that will happen to him, for all the things he'll do.

The truth of it, though, is that Stiles doesn't hesitate.

He can't leave Scott alone, out there. He _won't_.

When the test is done, a scarce five minutes later, Dr. Harris barely glances over it before smiling that same, cold smile. "Welcome to the army, son," he says, and Stiles bristles.

"I'm not your _son_ ," he spits, and doesn't think of his dad, can't think of -

"You'll make an excellent strategist. But you knew that, didn't you?"

Stiles is starting to shake. Not visibly, but somewhere inside himself, a subterranean tremor starting in his bones, making him clench his teeth.

"McCall might be a fine soldier, but we've learned that the presence of someone familiar, of an anchor, is necessary to the success of the gene therapy. Otherwise, it can lead to psychological and, ultimately, neurological damage. Fatal damage, even."

"You want me to be his anchor," Stiles says, flatly. The shakes won't go away; they coalesce into a shuddering, roiling ball of sickness in the pit of his stomach, until Stiles is almost sure he's going to throw up.

"You'll serve as one, until his transformation is over, and he chooses his own. Be grateful, child. You have the opportunity to save the life of a friend."

"Fuck you," Stiles says, even though it's a bad word, even though his dad would totally ground him for saying it, but his dad -

His dad won't ever ground him again.

  


* * *


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this story, there is a juvenile military, consisting of child soldiers as young as twelve. They're trained exhaustively before being sent out into the field at the age of fifteen. Each 'unit' consists of a captain, a captain's assistant, two strategists and a minimum of two fighters. While all the soldiers are, technically, trained to fight, those designated as fighters are the ones that will, upon graduation, be assigned to the front-lines.
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> In Stiles's unit, Danny is the captain, Lydia and Stiles are the strategists and Scott and Jackson are the fighters (although Jackson also doubles as Danny's assistant). This situation is likely to change once Scott's L23 gene is activated, after which he will be transferred to the werecorps, to train with those few teenagers that have lupine abilities.

* * *

 

"Get up, losers." Jackson kicks each bunk as he passes; Stiles jostles awake, blinking and bleary. "Danny wants us outta here in four. Three, two, one - "

They're out in under four minutes, tumbling down the dim corridor and into the communal showers. Stiles is suddenly, sharply awake - not only because the water is scalding hot and acidic with antiseptics, but because _Lydia is naked_ , and Stiles will miss absolutely no opportunity to worship at her slender, lissome altar.

"Eyes back in your head, Stilinski," says Danny, who'd finished showering before they'd even made it in, and is lounging against the far wall, clear of the water. He's already neat and spiffing in his uniform, and Stiles spares a moment's regret for the fact that he can't worship at Danny's and Lydia's altars at the same time. If only Danny wasn't so goddamn punctual; Stiles can't be expected to wake up until he _has_ to.

"Sorry, Cap," Stiles grins, and proceeds to splutter as Scott sprays him with liquid soap. "Hey!"

"Kids," sniffs Lydia, and turns off her shower, wrapping a towel around herself and shaking out her short, spiky hair.

"You know you love our spontaneous innocence," says Stiles, and Lydia scoffs.

"Innocence. Right."

Danny sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Listen up. It's our unit's turn for sterilizations, today." Danny's voice is matter-of-fact. "Jackson's up first; he's gone to the clinic, already. Lydia's next, at 0515 hours. Scott's going at 0545. Stiles, you're slotted in for 0615."

"Pretty sure I'll never be _slotted_ into anything, if you catch my drift," Stiles mutters, and then yowls exaggeratedly when Lydia smacks him on the ass on her way out.

"What about you?" Scott asks. "Aren't you going in, Captain?"

"I'm a year older than you are," Danny reminds them. "I was sterilized last year."

"How's it feel?" Not that Stiles is nervous, or anything, but - he won't be able to have kids, after this. Which, Stiles can see the point; in a base full of hormonal teens, it's not like the army can have people boning and randomly sprouting sprogs. Might as well make it safe for them to bone, then, without fear of sprouting anything. And it isn't like their genes haven't already been harvested for the scientists to play mix-and-match with, so nobody needs to reproduce the old-fashioned way. Laboratory breeding is better than unauthorized offspring, although the government hasn't quite mastered genome engineering, yet. "Is it - do you feel any different? Afterward?"

"Different," Danny deadpans. He's good at deadpanning.

"Um. Y'know." Stiles makes a flicking motion with his wrist. " _This_ stuff."

"He means jerking off," Scott clarifies, like it isn't perfectly obvious or like Stiles is speaking an alien language.

"No," Danny replies. "It doesn't feel any different."

"Oh." Great, now Stiles is thinking of Danny jerking off. And Danny, as if he can sense that (the dude's gotta be psychic or something, seriously), narrows his eyes.

"Stop talking shit and get ready. Our morning drills are canceled because of the sterilizations, but that doesn't mean I'm going to let you waste your time. Until each one of you is called to med-bay, you're going to be doing push-ups. While reciting each and every SOP for reconnaissance and recovery."

"Standard operating procedures _suck_ ," Scott whines, as he and Stiles towel off and struggle into their uniforms.

"They also keep you alive," Danny says, and steps out. "We'll return to normal drills after seven."

Awesome. Just your average day of involuntary institutionalized emasculation followed by brutal physical training. Stiles wonders why kids aren't flocking to volunteer for military service.

At least they haven't begun Scott's gene therapy.

Yet.

 

* * *

 

When he reports to med-bay, another creepily nice nurse (Stiles likes to think of them as the Stepford Nurses) guides him to a curtained cubicle, politely asks him to strip and lays him down on a padded slab. Just a step up from what you'd expect in a mortuary. Stiles doesn't even feel exposed, anymore, lying there without a stitch of clothing on; they've had so many check-ups by now that the army could probably hang him naked from his toes in the middle of a town square, and all Stiles would care about would be the ache in his toes. He doesn't feel cold, either, because the temperature in med-bay is always regulated.

So here he is, all skin and bone, and sarcasm is his only defense.

Until he completes his training and is given his own rifle, anyway.

"You're Stiles," the nurse says says, smiling.

"I know who I am, thanks. Haven't acquired amnesia, so far, although Jackson keeps knocking my skull against things."

"We won't be that rough with you. Relax. We're just going to - "

"Remove my gonads? Chop off my balls?"

She looks horrified. " _No_. We'll simply… irradiate them. You won't be able to produce sperm, but you'll be entirely capable of - well, you're still a child."

"Yep. Child. That's why you're sterilizing me, right? Because, clearly, sexually inactive children are in such _desperate_ need of sterilization?"

"Your records did mention you had an attitude problem," the nurse says, with a fake, passive-aggressive compassion that just gets Stiles's back up.

"You have any kids of your own?" he asks, abruptly, noting her wedding ring. "Or did they kill that option for you, too?"

She stares at him. And finally leaves him alone.

The curtain swings closed behind her when she goes.

Stiles spends the next five minutes studying the chart pasted overhead, detailing his unit number (48), his unit captain (Daniel Mahealani), his blood-type (O+), his age (13 years and 7 months) and his role (strategist).

Sometime soon, they'll come in, drug him and 'irradiate' his balls. How sick is it that the first person to touch his balls will be someone out to sterilize him? While he's unconscious? Man, Spider Robinson knew what he was talkin' about. God really _is_ an iron.

A demure little chime goes off next to his bed, ostensibly announcing the scheduled start of his operation. As if on cue, a team of doctors walks in, and a lady with white gloves eases a mask onto his face.

"This won't hurt a bit," she says, and the thing is… she's right.

The deepest wounds never do.

 

* * *

 

He wakes up to the sound of screaming.

Not his own, to his vague surprise. But someone else's.

At first, his brain tells him it must be a nightmare or an auditory hallucination, a product of his semiconscious mind. But as he struggles awake, he picks up on the crashing of glass and metal - lots of shattering and clattering - and a sharpening female screech, raised high above the hubbub.

He's out of his bed in less than three seconds.

He almost falls over, because his limbs are still sluggish and he's been wrapped in one of those dumb hospital gowns, but he does what he has to do. Before looking, before checking what the hell is going on outside his curtained enclosure, he has to be prepared. He quickly kneels and works the screws out of one of the legs of his hospital bed.

It takes too long. Two more seconds. Five. Seven -

The leg comes loose, and he pulls it out. The bed wobbles and tilts, but stays upright.

Stiles edges to the side of his cubicle, impromptu weapon in hand, and pulls the curtain back an inch.

It's - it's chaos.

People are running everywhere, shouting. A door at the end of med-bay - one that had been previously secured with five separate bars - is now hanging off its hinges, the bars snapped like matchsticks.

Before Stiles can reach out to stop someone and ask them what the hell is going on, though, he sees _it_.

A shape. A dark blur of noise, a roar in motion, leaping right across the ward and ricocheting off the walls, trailing blood in its wake.

Fanged. Furred. _Massive_.

It's -

It's one of the werecorps.

Stiles immediately drops his 'weapon', because it won't mean shit against _this_. Instead, Stiles does what all the instructional manuals Harris has been feeding him advise him to do - he goes still, goes silent, and breathes as calmly and evenly as he can. Staying off the wolf's sensory radar.

He's been training to be Scott's anchor, after all. And the first lesson is to _never_ panic around these things; it'll only set them off. What the hell is wrong with all the staff, that they're acting like -

Oh.

Oh, that's -

It's a. It's a dead body. Slumped across the reception counter. Blood dripping down onto the floor along a dangling arm.

Gun-shots go off. The soldiers are here; someone must've pressed the alarm. But the beast just keeps on going, the bullets barely making it rear back at the impact, even though Stiles can see that they aren't ordinary bullets - they're wolfsbane, because of the way they smoke when they hit the wolf's skin.

As Stiles watches, the monster (not a monster, _not_ a monster, _Scott_ will be like this) turns and swipes its claws at a female soldier that rushes at him, and there's a spray of blood so fine that it's almost mist - a red, hazy mist - before the woman gurgles around a mostly-severed neck and crumples to the floor.

Stiles's stomach heaves.

Once.

Twice.

 _No_. Think. This is - this is obviously a containment failure. Obviously a -

Where is the wolf's _anchor_? Shouldn't he or she have been called, by now? What -

Unless the anchor is dead, too. Or unavailable. For whatever reason.

Jesus.

At least the wolf's slowing down, now, too many bullets and too many wounds for them to heal as swiftly as they usually do. It lets out a spine-chilling, agonized howl - frankly the most terrifying thing Stiles has ever heard, and that's saying something - before folding under impact of six armored soldiers. They'll kill the creature if they shoot it up with any more wolfsbane, so they pull knives out in lieu of their guns and start stabbing it, over and over and over, until it goes still.

Or almost still.

It's healing around its wounds, of course, albeit at a slower rate, thanks to the poison in its veins.

When the group of soldiers parts, panting and blood-spattered, Stiles sees a human boy, curled up on the floor, skin a slick, shiny red.

He looks like an embryo. A newborn. Surrounded by a mess of blood and tissue that might as well be a ruptured placenta. He's tall and muscled, but it's still a teenager's body, still not full-grown. Seventeen, at most. A shock of dark hair and trembling hands. Hunched shoulders. Torn lips, from which a sound emerges, a thin, ugly sound that's as much a snarl as it is a sob.

Stiles takes a step forward.

He doesn't know why. Maybe it's the drugs that haven't washed all the way out of his system. Maybe it's the death-wish all the army psychologists seem to think he has.

He doesn't know why, but he does it, anyway, and when the boy's eyes snap to him, half-aware and half-feral, Stiles is stunned by how unnaturally blue they are. Flame-blue and _wild_. Stiles feels this strange shudder run all the way through him, sizzling along his spine, and even from this distance, Stiles can see the boy's nostrils flare.

Crap. He's caught Stiles's scent.

And then, suddenly, Stiles is being shoved out of the way.

"Damn it, kid, what're you doing out here?" a soldier demands, hassling him into his cubicle, and then it's just so _quiet_ , the quiet after a storm, as the soldiers snap restraints around the wolf-boy, dope him with enough sedatives to fell a horse, and carry him out. Presumably to another containment chamber, elsewhere on the base.

The boy never turns to look back at Stiles, but somehow, Stiles gets the feeling that it's because he doesn't _need_ to.

What had Harris said about scents, again?

No matter. He'll figure that out later. Spend hours checking his notes. But now, there's clean-up to help with, and bodies to move out of med-bay. With the wolf gone, the surviving staff - and a few of the able-bodied patients - are gradually making it out of their hiding-places, shaky and sweaty, and the stench of fear-piss and vomit is as overpowering as the stench of blood. The floor is slippery with more fluids than Stiles can recognize. And it's not just the living that've pissed themselves; in some cases, the corpses have urine-soaked clothing, as well, having lost control of their bladders in the moments before they died.

The place smells like a war-zone. Like one of the places where Stiles will be sent to fight, once he's old enough.

Stiles has no idea how he'll survive, seeing things like this everyday, even if it'll mostly be machine-guns and not wolves that'll reduce people to meaty, twitching pulps in front of him. Stiles's body might live through it, but he's not sure his mind will.

And Scott. He's - he's got to think about Scott. How to not let Scott get into that situation, how to make it so that Scott doesn't kill indiscriminately, so that Scott doesn't get himself hurt, so that Scott doesn't _hate_ himself -

Fuck. 

Looks like Stiles has an appointment with the devil, today.

 

* * *

 

Stiles goes straight to Harris's office, when he's out of med-bay and has changed back into his uniform. He doesn't return to the barracks, like Danny had told him to, because Stiles can't meet Scott, like this. He can't _stand_ to meet Scott. Not until he has some answers, until he has the beginnings of a plan, or even just some goddamn variables, _something_ to fit into an equation that makes sense. An equation with Scott on one side of it, and Scott's still-intact humanity on the other. Something that'll let him say, to Scott's face, that he knows how to help Scott. Something that'll let him tell Scott that, and not have it be a total lie.

Harris's secretary doesn't stop him, or tell him that Harris is busy at a meeting or is touring the labs, doing mad scientist-type things. She just shows him through.

"Stiles," says Harris, as Stiles drops into a seat opposite his desk. "What a pleasant surprise. And here I thought you disliked my company."

"Oh, I don't just dislike you," Stiles says, cheerfully, even though his breath is still thready with adrenaline and his pulse hasn't stopped racing. "I despise you with the fire of a thousand suns. Or is it the ire of a thousand Huns?"

"Your puns are delightful, as always." Harris doesn't sound in the least bit delighted. "Let's get down to business, shall we? I presume you're here about the debacle in med-bay."

"Debacle," Stiles repeats, the word like ash in his mouth. "If by that you mean the death of five people, then _yeah_ , it was a _debacle_."

"It was a containment failure."

"I noticed that much. I also noticed that whatever happened to this guy may happen to Scott, and if you don't tell me what the hell went wrong, I won't be able to stop Scott from - from - "

"Going on a rampage? I appreciate your professional concern."

"It isn't professional, you jackass. Scott is my _friend_."

"A trite concept, in a place like this. But you genuinely do not have anything to worry about. Such an incident is unlikely to repeat itself, not only with Mr. McCall, but with the original subject, himself."

Stiles doesn't budge. "Aw, shucks, forgotten about Murphy's Law, already? Everything that can go wrong will go wrong, Einstein. I don't care how unlikely it is; if it can happen, I need to know why, and what I can do about it."

Harris shrugs delicately. He resembles a snake shrugging off its skin, more than he does a human being. "If you insist. The information is classified, but then, so is Scott McCall's status as lupine-compatible, at this stage, and you're already privy to that." There's a thoughtful pause. "Very well. The young gentleman you saw in med-bay, today - "

"Gentleman?" Stiles snorts.

" - is known as Derek Hale."

"No kidding," Stiles breathes. "Related to _the_ Peter Hale?"

"The nephew of General Hale, yes."

Holy shit. Peter Hale was the original were-soldier, the very first man to manifest L23, and he did it naturally, no gene therapy required. The army's spent nearly two decades trying to figure out how. Peter's a decorated general, these days, despite having had a stint of madness a couple of years ago. Heck, given what Stiles has seen of Derek, maybe madness runs in the family. "Isn't that, like, really rare? Impossibly rare, even? For two people from the _same family_ to join the werecorps?"

"The Hales are the only recorded case of multiple occurrences of L23 within one family. Like Peter, Derek developed lupine characteristics without chemical or genetic interference, as he approached adolescence."

"Another natural, huh?" What're the odds?

"And that's what led to the younger Hale's breakdown." Harris splays his palms out on the desk and studies his nails. "He's uncommonly strong, as you no doubt saw - perhaps even stronger than his uncle - and, well, it wasn't exactly easy to recruit him."

Stiles's eyes go huge. He can _feel_ them go huge in his sockets, because, damn. What he wouldn't have given to be so strong that he could fight the military off, by himself! "How'd you recruit him, th - oh," he says, because there's only one answer. "His family," Stiles says, feeling ill. "You threatened his family."

"We had to. That tactic hadn't been necessary with Peter, when we brought him in. Peter is… peculiar, in that he lacks normal empathic reactions - "

"He's a sociopath," Stiles supplies.

Harris levels him a look. "You'd do best not to insult your superior officer."

"It ain't an insult if it's _accurate_. It's just a statement of fact. And what're you gonna do, doc? Have me reprimanded? Whoops, but then you'll have to tell people you were giving me classified information." Stiles sprawls in his chair, adopting what the psychology books tell him is the least intimidated posture imaginable.

"One day," Harris says, softly, "your cleverness will be your own downfall."

"Eh, I like to think it'll save my ass. And Scott's. Hopefully. Speaking of, maybe you could continue with your ass-saving story? 'Cause Scott needs to know this stuff. By which I mean, I need to know it for him. And _you_ need me to know it for him, because if I can't anchor him, he'll go nuts before he ever becomes your cute lil' werepet."

Harris studies him. "Indeed. As I was saying, Peter wasn't as concerned about his family and seemed rather eager to join the army - "

"Eager to kill on a mass scale, you mean."

"Shall I continue, or will you insist on providing your particularly edifying brand of commentary?"

"Edifying? Wow. I'm flattered." When Harris's jaw tightens, Stiles waves his hands. "Sorry, sorry. Go on."

"Derek Hale, however, was only convinced to enlist when we promised not to recruit any of his siblings or his parents. Except that recently - and without our authorization - that promise was broken."

"Without your authorization? What the hell?"

"We had a rogue operative. A certain Katherine Argent, one of our lead researchers, volunteered herself as an anchor for Derek, but the connection didn't quite… take."

"She wasn't suited to be his anchor?"

"Rather, she didn't care." Harris cocks his head. "You feel a certain affection for Scott, don't you?"

"'Course I do. We grew up together; we're practically brothers. You wouldn't have been able to get me in here, if - " Stiles shuts up. They used the same trap on Derek Hale. Stiles hadn't expected to have things in common with the mindless killer he'd seen today, but… crap.

"Exactly. We didn't know, at first, why Argent's attempts to become Derek's anchor were failing; she met all the objective requirements. Then, she suggested using sexual contact to cement the bond - "

"She what?" Stiles yelps. No way is he sleeping with Scott! Okay, he'll do it to save Scott's _life_ , but -

"Don't worry. Sexual contact isn't necessary to form a stable bond; in fact, the Argent-Hale pair was the first to feature such contact. Apparently, the oxytocin released by orgasm manufactured the closeness that would normally come from… love." Harris says the word distastefully, like he thinks it's a kind of perversion, or something.

In Stiles's humble opinion, replacing love with a forced bond is the real perversion. Not to mention… "Um, how old was Derek? When - "

"About your age," says Harris, and Stiles pales.

That can't be right. If Katherine Argent was a researcher, wouldn't that make her an adult? "How old was she?"

Harris's answer is bland. "Twenty-four."

Fuck, that's - that's. "That's illegal," Stiles manages, at last, because if he tries to say it's evil, Harris will just blink at him uncomprehendingly. Peter Hale isn't the only sociopath, around here.

"You know as well as I do that most laws do not apply to the lupine-compatible."

"If you _ever_ try to do something like that to Scott - "

"We won't have to, will we?" Harris says, almost kindly. "Not if you do your job properly."

"Fine," Stiles grits out. "Fine. Tell me the rest, so I can do my _job_."

Harris hitches a shoulder. "There isn't much else to say. Derek did become protective of Katherine, and anchored himself to her. At that age, he could hardly have been expected to resist - "

"Not that," Stiles interrupts. "Don't - don't tell me that."

"It upsets you," Harris observes, a weirdly considering glint in his eyes. "You feel… empathy? For Derek Hale?"

"I just don't think his _rape_ needs to be discussed in detail by heartless bastards like you. And it's not like it'll be anything relevant to Scott, because I'll never let that happen to him."

"Hm. We'll see." Harris flicks his fingers, like it's a matter of no consequence. "At any rate, everything seemed to be going smoothly with the anchor-bond, until Derek found out, a few days ago, that Argent had, in fact, been experimenting on his family. On his sister, Laura, and his cousin, Josh, as well as his parents."

"How - " Stiles had avoided throwing up in med-bay, but he isn't sure he can avoid it, anymore. If someone ever did that to his _own_ dad - to Scott's _mom_ -

"Argent was exceedingly clever, hiring goons from her private funds to capture the remaining Hales and secure them in her own home, off-base. She was determined to uncover the secret of why the L23 gene was so prevalent in the Hale gene-pool."

Stiles can see it with crystal clarity, in his mind's eye. The tests she'd have had to do, to see if any of the Hales had the healing abilities associated with L23, even if they didn't have L23, themselves. Those wouldn't have been 'tests'; they would've been torture sessions. That Argent could do that to people, to the very people whose son and brother she was _sleeping_ with… "You expect me to believe the army didn't authorize that? That they aren't curious about the Hales?"

Harris's eyes are cold and expressionless. "The military would never break its promises."

"Uh-huh." Stiles is starting to get a headache. He's seen and heard a lot of crazy shit since joining up, but this takes the prize. The horrifying prize. "How'd Derek find out?"

"We don't know. Investigations are underway. It's most likely something to do with scent; he must've smelled his family on Argent, despite her efforts to keep herself clean."

"And that's why Derek went berserk, today?"

"He's _been_ berserk, ever since he found out. He was being kept in containment and under sedation in med-bay, but - "

"He broke out."

"Yes."

"And people died. All because you guys were too incompetent to keep him contained, after raping him and torturing his family."

"You're emotionally compromised," Harris says, neutrally. He seems curious. "Why?"

"Because I'm _human_ , you goddamn reptile!"

"We didn't torture his family."

"No, you just mysteriously didn't know about one of your own chief researchers torturing them, despite the fact that you're paranoid about monitoring every fucking thing that happens in every fucking home across the American continent. Especially in the homes of defense officials and medical researchers that keep state secrets. Who, y'know, sorta _have_ to be monitored."

Harris doesn't say anything.

And he _won't_ say anything - why should he? - so Stiles just briefly drops his head into his hands and mumbles, "How'll this help Scott?"

"It serves as a warning."

"To not go against you sickos, in case you decide to torture our families? Yeah, I got that bit."

"That, too," Harris admits. "But especially that Scott's bond with his anchor - with you - must be inviolable. If, at any point in time, you feel that it isn't, you must inform us before he loses control. You must never lie to him; you must never mislead him."

"Like hell I will."

"Not even for his own good," Harris stresses. "Not for any reason, at all. Wolves can smell deceit, and given the effect it had on Derek Hale, we cannot allow it to have the same effect on another."

"It won't," Stiles says, despite the fact that he'd thought of lying to Scott about this, of not scaring him with what had happened in med-bay. Looks like he'll have to tell Scott, even if it will scare him. Damn. Stiles is positive that it was the nature of Argent's deceit, and not just the deceit itself, that sent Derek over the edge - but he can't take a chance with Scott's sanity. He won't.

"Excellent. I'm sure you understand the gravity of the situation, following my anecdote."

Anecdote? "Screw you, I ain't no Argent. I'll never betray Scott. Never."

"And what if you're drawn to someone else?" Harris's eyes have that weird glint again. "What then?"

"The hell do you mean, 'drawn'? What am I, a picture?"

"You know very well what I mean, Mr. Stilinski. Don't prevaricate."

Stiles scowls. "I thought you said the bond didn't have to be sexual."

"You still retain hopes of being loyal to Scott, while having a sexual or romantic relationship with someone else."

"You think I can't do it?"

"It's unlikely that Scott will be of primary importance to you, if you grow to care for someone else."

"Are you - are you telling me that I can _never have sex_? Ever?"

"Not with the same person, not repeatedly. That will foment affection, and affection for someone other than Scott is not something you ought to risk harboring."

"You're insane." Stiles gapes at him. "You - don't you love anybody? Don't you get that it's possible to love different people in different ways? I love my dad, and that doesn't make me love Scott any less. Why would - "

"A romantic relationship is more demanding than a filial relationship. Are you willing to cause another massacre? Of the sort you witnessed today?"

Stiles seethes. Eventually, sullenly, he says: "No."

"As well you shouldn't. The bond between the anchor and the wolf is paramount, as we have just learned. It is sacrosanct. Once we begin young Scott's gene therapy, you must not be distracted from him, not even for a moment. Not until he stabilizes - a process that might take several years - and chooses an anchor for himself."

"What if his chosen anchor is me? After - after all those years?"

"Then you'll be his for life, and no one else's."

A weight settles, like lead, in Stiles's chest. He doesn't - he doesn't resent Scott, of course. Stiles is the one that chose to stalk him all the way into the military, for god's sake. None of this is Scott's fault. He doesn't think Scott will ever wanna sleep with him, because that's just too… freaky, and Scott isn't freaky like that. Is he? But if it does happen, or if it has to happen, and if Stiles can't sleep with anyone _else_ -

Why does this even bother him? He'd been willing to lay his life down for Scott, before. He still is. How is this any worse?

It sure as heck isn't as bad as what Derek Hale's been through. What Derek did for his family. What he let Argent do to him.

It's -

"Perhaps you need some time to process this," Harris says, gently, as if he's actually a considerate human being and not a soulless creep.

"I don't think any amount of time's enough to process _this_ ," Stiles huffs, but he knows he'll cope with it. It's not as big a deal as his stupid emotions seem to feel it is. He'll wrestle them into submission. He always does.

Harris just watches him, like he knows that about Stiles, too. Like he's read every psych report; like he's peeled back the layers of Stiles's flesh and has peered inside him, all the way into Stiles's mind.

"What happened to Derek's family?" Stiles asks, finally. "Did they - " 

"Unfortunately, in trying to extricate them from Argent's… equipment, all but one of them died."

Stiles buckles, like he's been punched in the solar plexus. "Fuck," he breathes, remembering Derek's eyes, and how they'd been -

"Laura, his sister, is miraculously alive, but no longer has all of her limbs. Or all of her organs."

For a second, Stiles's vision greys. He flashes on Lydia, her sweet, lovely body, and sees it ripped apart, disfigured, deliberately deformed. No. No. _No_. Stiles sits up, composing himself, swallowing his bile. He can't lose it. Not in Harris's office. "Where's Laura, now?"

"She's in state custody. For ongoing medical treatment."

"How convenient," Stiles spits out, bitterly. "You still have one hostage left to keep Derek in line."

"Nonsense," says Harris. "We only want to help her. Perhaps, with time, she will walk as she once used to. Talk, as she once used to."

"Yeah, you guys are angels. You only wanna help. Right."

"It is a tactical advantage, yes, but that is not what we intended."

"Sure, it ain't." Enough of this. Stiles gets up and walks to the door, but he feels oddly dizzy, disembodied, like his limbs aren't connected to his brain. It says something about Harris, Stiles thinks, that Stiles is in shock after one conversation with him, although he wasn't after what he saw in med-bay. Well, not as _much_. "Thanks for the pep-talk, doc. I feel _so_ much better."

"You're welcome." Harris adjusts his glasses, switching his focus to the paperwork on his desk.

The conversation feels unfinished, though - and Stiles finds himself turning around, at the threshold, half-in and half-out of the room. "Did he kill her?"

"I beg your pardon?" Harris glances up at him.

"Katherine Argent. Did Derek kill her?"

"No," says Harris, going still. "He didn't. He couldn't bring himself to."

On one level, it makes no sense. Derek had killed those other people, hadn't he? But on another level, on some level almost beyond comprehension, Stiles is relieved. There's still something left of Derek, then, other than the wolf. Something that won't let him kill someone he once loved.

"We executed her, instead." Harris says it as if he's talking about cracking an egg. "Yesterday. We had hoped it would placate him."

"Did it?"

"No," Harris murmurs, and looks honestly puzzled. "It didn't."

And all of a sudden, Stiles can't bear to stay in here. Not for another second. Not for another. Single. Second.

He whirls around and leaves, not even bothering to slam the door behind him, hurtling out of the office and past the startled secretary, all the way to the lower-level toilets.

He stumbles into a cubicle, locks it, and vomits into the bowl. The stench reminds him of the scene in med-bay - the dangling arm, the stab-wounds closing like dozens of bloody mouths on Derek's skin - and he vomits some more. He keeps vomiting, until he's just dry-heaving, wetness gathering at the corners of his eyes, and after he's done, he flushes the reeking mess away, wipes his face with toilet-paper and collapses on the seat, shaking.

He stuffs a fist between his teeth, doubles over, and cries.

He cries for the first time since coming to the base.

He cries for the first time, miserably, whole-heartedly, because he knows he'll never cry again. He coughs and chokes, snot clogging up his nose and dribbling down his chin, because he's crying for the first time _and_ the last time, the last time ever, and he might as well make it count.

Danny will punish him for his absence. Scott will be worried by it.

But at least these few minutes, these few minutes locked in a stinking cubicle, are his own.

 

* * *

**  
TBC**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A further explanation of why this government neuters its soldiers can be found [here](http://archiveofourown.org/comments/1443662).


End file.
